Employing The Task-Based Learning Approach To Develop Middle School Students' Learning Motivation In English

The trends of cultural diversity and the demands of global economic integration all create the need for the teaching and learning a foreign language to the students of today. But a common phenomenon is that students become more and more passive in English class. So it is an important task for teachers to arouse and develop their learning motivation at present.There are five chapters in this thesis.The first chapter is introduction. It mainly introduces the present situation of English teaching in China and the existing problems. The desire of making learning more student-centered to increase the learning motivation is reflected in many teaching approaches which engage students actively in the learning process. Since the 1970s, psycholinguistics and sociolinguists have begun to do some research on improving second language learning motivation in the task activities. It is also emphasized that in the task activities monitoring and evaluating can help learners to become more aware of their own progress, and then lead to personal change in the learning motivation. So, this thesis aims at illustrating the employment of the task-based learning approach for improving middle school students' learning motivation.The second chapter is theoretical basis. This chapter will present the theoretical basis of the learning motivation and the task-based learning approach: psychological, pedagogical and foreign language learning studies on motivation; theories on the task-based learning approach; the advantages of the task-based learning approach in developing the learning motivation. In this section the author will attempt to draw together the ever-growing literature on motivation. More importantly, an overview of the using of the task-based learning approach in foreign language teaching will be provided. These theories will be helpful to understand the issues in the present context of the study.The third chapter introduces the experiments, which was carried out in Grade 2, Chengzitan middle School, Pulandian City. The questionnaire on the learning motivation,...